Unichem’s 2000 convention was held in Puerto Rico from September 24 to October 1. Our reporting begins this week with consideration of a session on internet pharmacy and e-commerce
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| Chris Etherington: embrace the opportunities |
Unichem has announced its internet portal to e-pharmacy services. Welcoming
a Government announcement at the British Pharmaceutical Conference (PJ, September
16, p397) that paved
the way for e-pharmacy, Mr Chris Etherington (managing director, Unichem Ltd)
said: “We must all accept this reality and move as quickly as possible
to embrace the opportunities it brings. . . . It highlights that pharmacy will
have to be prepared for a world where variety and convenience of access to services
will become all important and where information provision, electronic ordering
and home delivery will be the norm.” There was a real potential for e-pharmacies,
he said.
This was not a plan to replace traditional pharmacy. It was a plan to transform
pharmacy into a service that met ever increasing demands for convenience and
flexibility, Mr Etherington went on. Every pharmacy could be an e-pharmacy.
Alliance Unichem had identified three priorities around which its e-commerce
strategy had been developed.
November launch
First, a portal for pharmacists, called pharmology.com, would be launched at
the beginning of November. Secondly, the internet would be used to deliver real-time
information to make the supply chain more responsive and to reduce costs. Both
manufacturers and pharmacists would be able to make business decisions based
on good information. Thirdly, information management would be further developed.
Explaining pharmology.com, Mr Etherington said that it would provide an electronic
marketplace in conjunction with suppliers, to ensure that pharmacists had good
purchasing opportunities, product information and search facilities. It would
offer news and information. Eventually, pharmacists would also be able to have
their own online presence.
This would mean that they could provide information about opening times, names
and pictures of staff, product databases and e-mail ordering of repeat prescriptions.
It would be possible to market directly to individual consumers or patients
by giving personal answers to questions raised via e-mail. Personalised dietary
and fitness programmes could be designed and passed to consumers and online
consumer tests and surveys could be carried out. Products could be ordered online
and delivered to customers’ homes. Newsletters, health information and
search engines could be provided.
“The internet will have an impact on all communities in the pharmacy world,”
Mr Etherington said. “Concepts such as
online disease management are very new but are developing fast. Information
and advice are readily available on the internet, both for pharmacists and consumers.
Connectivity within the health care community already exists. Very shortly we
will see this model emerging in the United Kingdom market and it is imperative
that everyone is equipped to maximise the opportunities that will face us all.”
A fully integrated system
The objective was to offer one fully integrated operating system for pharmacy.
With it pharmacists should be able to: manage inventory and ordering; have information
on stock availability; manage prescriptions, including endorsement and repeat
prescriptions; keep patient medication records; interact with other professionals;
obtain real time product information; and have all the management information
they needed.
The pharmology.com home page would lead into six main areas of the website:
“products”, where users could find out about all medicines, appliances,
homoeopathic and veterinary products; “my business”, to show the state
of trading accounts and relative performance; “medical information”,
giving information on disease states, causes and treatments; “personal
and leisure offers”; “news”, which would include current events,
product alerts and e-mail; and “community and commerce”, offering
services contributing to profitability.
At a press briefing, Mr Etherington explained that one of the features of pharmology.com
would be that consumers would be able to enter details of a health problem and
get a list of suitable products and details of the nearest pharmacy associated
with the website. A significant proportion of the £20m investment in pharmology.com
would be spent on mass marketing. Real-time dispensing data would be available
to manufacturers, if pharmacists agreed to release it. If the profession decided
to allow the service, it would be possible for patients to have products sent
to them direct from Unichem, with the sale credited to a chosen pharmacy.
Comment, p505.
A way of making profit without having to invest in stock, and which Unichem
intends to offer as part of pharmology.com, was outlined by two speakers from
America.
Mr Robert Coopman (Robert Coopman Consultants) explained that the Walsh pharmaceutical
wholesaler offered an internet service, healthcareamerica.com, through which
people could order products for delivery as though they had been bought them
a local pharmacy. All the pharmacy needed was a healthcareamerica link on its
own website. At any time of the day or night patients could order prescriptions,
have them approved and paid for by health insurance and have them delivered
by post. At the same time, they could also include vitamins and hair spray in
the package.
“This is simply too convenient not to happen,” Mr Coopman said. “The
customer associates on your web site with your pharmacy, places an order that
is directed to Walsh and shipped off directly to your customer. You get full
credit for the sale. You pay electronic transmission charges and an order fulfilment
charge. When the transaction is complete you have the most profitable sale you
have ever created and it may have all happened while you slept.”
Mr Bill Swail (People’s Pharmacy, Texas), a Walsh pharmacy customer, said
that the main advantage to him of linking to healthcareamerica.com was that
he could offer for sale 15,000 items that his pharmacies did not stock and which
he did not want to stock. The profit margin was about 14 per cent of the selling
price, but there was no investment tied up in stock.